No Man's Land
***
Cinema Releases - May 17, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15.
Bosnia-Herzegovina. 93 minutes. Written and directed by Danis Tanovic. Starring
Branco Djuric, Rene Bitorajac, Filip Sovagovic, Georges Siatidis, Serge-Henri
Valcke, Katrin Cartlidge, Simon Callow.
"No Man's Land" tells the story
of three soldiers in the Balkans who find themselves stuck in a trench between
the camps of opposing forces. One of the men is a Serb, two of them are Bosnian
-- and, oh yeah, one of the Bosnians has been placed on top of a bouncing
mine that will explode lead bearings all over the place if
disturbed.
The guys are stuck there in the middle of nowhere
helpful without any idea what to do -- it's tense, desperate and instantly
absorbing. Sharp, exasperated conversations erupt. Hopeful but ultimately
circular suggestions are offered as to logistical ways of getting out of
the situation. And it's pretty amazing how, in the face of horror, danger
and dread, the human spirit finds a way of still getting bloody well bored
when there's nothing to do.
Danis Tanovich's film is stark and violent; it's
also hilarious in the most despairing kind of way. A Hollywood movie with
the same premise would undoubtedly have featured shots of men looking ponderingly
into the horizon, forming sentimental bonds, musing aloud about the insanity
of war and then discovering some Rambo-esque way of solving their problem.
Tanovich prefers to show his men bickering like children about who started
the war and getting into power struggles by stealing each other's guns. The
ludicrousness of bureaucracy is lampooned when UN ground troops manage to
discover the situation, find a way to sort it out and even get the surrounding
platoons to agree to a temporary ceasefire -- but their generals worry about
policy issues, tell the troops to withdraw and inform the press that the
troops could not move because there was no ceasefire. Reporters intervene,
helpfully at first, and then get orders from the newsroom to plunge into
the front line with that immortally inane question, "How do you
feel?"
"No Man's Land" was this year's surprise Oscar-winner
for Best Foreign Language Film. A few years ago that award went to "Kolya",
whose filmmakers went on to give us this week's laughable World War Two movie
"Dark Blue World". Somehow I don't see that happening to Danis Tanovich.
Because his pacing makes this situation so hypnotic, and because his tone
is so on the money, he makes us laugh and frustrates us at the same time.
His jokes are not simply smug and knowing -- there's an underlying anger
about the mess of the system, the injustice of violence, the stupid impatience
of ordinary people who get caught up in war and find ways of making it worse
for themselves. Tanovich is a Bosnian who is upset about the destruction
of his homeland, and he protests by making his characters look so ridiculous
that their real-life counterparts are challenged to get a
grip.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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